the sharp knife of a short life
by irite
Summary: An inglorious death for a hero.


**The title is a quote from The Band Perry's "If I Die Young." I don't own.**

**Many thanks to my beta, dysprositos, for beta wonderfulness.**

**WARNINGS: NOT a happy ending, and implied (but fake) sexual assault.**

* * *

Steve had never thought that he would die like this, anonymous, alone except for the guy with the gun. But it wasn't looking good.

Well, I should probably back up a little and explain how it got to this point.

He'd left New York right after seeing Thor and Loki off with nothing but a few things strapped to the back of his motorcycle and a strong desire to get out of there.

'Discover' the modern world, as it were.

And so he'd traveled down the East Coast until he hit DC, spent a few weeks there, and then turned west.

He was currently in a small town in Indiana, or so he thought (their sign was kinda dingy and he'd quit looking around when he was on his bike, seemed too dangerous). It was too dark for him to feel comfortable driving, and so he'd stopped for the night, gotten a room at a local motel, and gone out for dinner, a burger and a beer.

In the small bar the girl behind the hotel desk had directed him to, he'd found a quiet atmosphere, and he'd nursed another couple beers before deciding to head back to his room. He was planning on an early start, and although he didn't seem to need as much sleep as he once had, old habits die hard and all that.

So he paid his tab, smiled at the bartender (young, looked like she was in school), and headed out, stuffing his hands in his pockets and preparing to walk to his room.

But he heard the sounds of a woman protesting, a steady litany of "No, _no_, no!"

And he couldn't just walk past that, so he followed the noise to an alleyway between the bar and a closed shop.

There was indeed a woman in there, crying, facing two men and cowering back into the wall.

Quickly, Steve broke into a run, shoving one of the men aside to get between them and the woman, his back to her protectively.

"Are you okay, ma'am?" he asked over his shoulder, eyes on the men.

Strangely, neither of them made a move towards him.

And he found out why a second later when a gun pressed into the base of his skull from behind.

"I'm just great, sugar," she said, the tone of her voice completely different from what it had been a moment before.

Her hand slipped into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, tossing it around his side to one of her, well, Steve hated to make assumptions, but the satisfied grins on their faces seemed to pretty clearly indicate 'henchmen.'

"That gag never fails to work, so thanks, big boy," she informed him, edging around his side as well, but keeping the gun in contact with his head.

This didn't look good, and Steve tensed, watching for a moment when he could strike. He didn't mind the loss of his wallet; there was nothing irreplaceable in there, just his fake driver's license and some cash. SHIELD had tried to give him a credit card, but he didn't like it, so it was in the bottom of his bag back in his hotel room.

But what really concerned him was the fact that they hadn't just robbed him and then let him go. He'd seen all their faces, the woman appearing to even go out of her way to show hers off while she was still pretending to be a victim, and that was troubling.

She edged all the way around him and kept her gun steady on his head as one of the men drew his.

If the gun had been pointing anywhere else except his head, Steve would have moved, but he didn't think that even the supersoldier serum could help him heal from a headshot at this distance.

So he watched and bided his time, and the woman took his wallet back from the non-gun-wielding man, and she and he made to exit the alley, her stride a casual saunter.

Steve looked at the guy with the gun, and waited for an opportunity.

For a second, the guy's eyes flicked to his friends' backs, and Steve took the opportunity, lunging forward to shove the guy's shoulder, trying to throw him off balance so he could grab the gun.

Sure, the man rocked back half a step, but the gun never wavered, and the smirk on his face only deepened.

Maybe that hadn't been the smartest move ever.

Steve could try again, though. "Hey, now, you don't want to do this."

"Because you're rich and famous and daddy will come after me, yadda yadda. I've heard it all before. And you're wrong. I _like_ doing this. Angel pays real well, and we ain't never been caught yet. Nobody notices when a tourist or two goes missing."

He was apparently done talking then, because the sound of the gun firing was loud in the sudden quiet.

For such a large man, Steve's body hardly made a sound as it hit the ground.

* * *

When Steve didn't return from his errand, the SHIELD agents assigned to surreptitiously tail him went out looking.

They found the body, and they called it in.

Fury handed over the authority for the funeral to the military; losing Captain America was a great blow to his organization, but not worth going public over.

The resulting affair was huge and gaudy, over the top in all the wrong ways.

Steve would have hated it, Natasha mused, watching from the back as people who didn't know him, didn't care about Steve Rogers the man, just Captain America the legend, spoke.

Of course, she'd hardly known him either, but he hadn't struck her as the type of person who would have appreciated this kind of fuss.

But that wasn't her call to make, and so she carried out her assignment and went back to her temporary quarters in DC, and spent the rest of the evening in the quiet before going back to base, to her next assignment, in the morning.


End file.
